Information Age
The Information Age (also known as the Third Industrial Revolution, Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, New Media Age, Internet Age, or the Digital Revolution[1]) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century to the early 21st century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during the Industrial Revolution, to an economy centered on information technology.[2] The onset of the Information Age has been linked to the development of the transistor in 1947[2] and the optical amplifier in 1957.[3] These technological advances have had a significant impact on the way information is processed and transmitted.
According to the United Nations Public Administration Network, the Information Age was formed by capitalizing on computer microminiaturization advances,[4] which led to modernized information systems and internet communications as the driving force of social evolution.[5]
Many debate when the Third Industrial Revolution ended and the Fourth Industrial Revolution began, ranging from 2000 to 2020.
Information in social and economic activities[edit]
The main feature of the information revolution is the growing economic, social and technological role of information.[64] Information-related activities did not come up with the Information Revolution. They existed, in one form or the other, in all human societies, and eventually developed into institutions, such as the Platonic Academy, Aristotle's Peripatetic school in the Lyceum, the Musaeum and the Library of Alexandria, or the schools of Babylonian astronomy. The Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution came up when new informational inputs were produced by individual innovators, or by scientific and technical institutions. During the Information Revolution all these activities are experiencing continuous growth, while other information-oriented activities are emerging.
Information is the central theme of several new sciences, which emerged in the 1940s, including Shannon's (1949) Information Theory[65] and Wiener's (1948) Cybernetics. Wiener stated: "information is information not matter or energy". This aphorism suggests that information should be considered along with matter and energy as the third constituent part of the Universe; information is carried by matter or by energy.[66] By the 1990s some writers believed that changes implied by the Information revolution will lead to not only a fiscal crisis for governments but also the disintegration of all "large structures".[67]
Porat (1976) measured the information sector in the US using the input-output analysis; OECD has included statistics on the information sector in the economic reports of its member countries.[74] Veneris (1984, 1990) explored the theoretical, economic and regional aspects of the informational revolution and developed a systems dynamics simulation computer model.[68][69]
These works can be seen as following the path originated with the work of Fritz Machlup who in his (1962) book "The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States", claimed that the "knowledge industry represented 29% of the US gross national product", which he saw as evidence that the Information Age had begun. He defines knowledge as a commodity and attempts to measure the magnitude of the production and distribution of this commodity within a modern economy. Machlup divided information use into three classes: instrumental, intellectual, and pastime knowledge. He identified also five types of knowledge: practical knowledge; intellectual knowledge, that is, general culture and the satisfying of intellectual curiosity; pastime knowledge, that is, knowledge satisfying non-intellectual curiosity or the desire for light entertainment and emotional stimulation; spiritual or religious knowledge; unwanted knowledge, accidentally acquired and aimlessly retained.[75]
More recent estimates have reached the following results:[44]